Speed Ogling...it's the new black

We’re nearing the end of a major facelift at work, so my office building has been swarming with construction workers for close to a year. Some of you might enjoy the sight of taut, heaving muscles lifting and moving, day after bending day. Some of you might even appreciate the not-so-subtle glances you get from said musclemen (I won’t lie, I hoist the girls up a little higher as I walk by). But if you’re like the women in my office, you want the construction workers to die a slow and painful death.

There have been so many complaints about lingering glances that the building manager finally decided to do something about it. Today, everyone in the building received an email saying that any construction worker caught checking out the goods for more than three seconds “will be fired on the spot.” Several brown-nosers were even appointed as watchdogs to protect those innocents who cannot successfully determine whether or not they’ve been violated.

“Voyeurism is an intolerable act!”

At first I was giddy with anticipation. I pictured fierce eyeball showdowns: “1-2-3! You’re toast, asshole!” People dropping off like flies! Then I realized that the 3-second rule has a lot of gray areas. Like, what if you think someone is checking out your butt but he’s really looking at lint on your pant leg? And some people are really fast counters. What if someone’s three is someone else’s two-and-a-half? And how the hell did they determine that three is the magic offensive number? If someone is an adept ogler, you can feel icky after one second.

Why was I not on this committee?

Anyway, after I got the email, I jumped into the hallway to you know, check things out. And do you know what? All eyes were facing downward. Jose. Hector. Phil. Roy. Steve. Germaine. Clint. Rick. Dave. Little Fred. Terry. (What? They’re my guys). Not one glance.

Yawn.

I was just about to go back into my office when my coworker Linda—a top heavy woman who's shaped like an ice cream cone—came barreling down the hallway. I gave her a little wave and when she raised her hand to do the same she accidentally flipped her Lean Cuisine lunch onto the floor and stepped in it. Tragically, her heel caught the lip of the plastic tray (or perhaps a Portobello mushroom) and she slid forward, hands first, and landed on the floor in a position one might assume if one would like to be mounted.

Oh.My.God. The eye cannot even begin to take in the visual feast that is a voluptuous woman on all fours in three seconds. It’s impossible. It’s even worse when she starts to whimper, “Help me. I have brown sauce on my stockings.”

Oh, bejesus.

In light of all this activity, I’ve broken two cardinal rules today: I blogged from work (I was about to bust a gut if I didn’t), and I didn’t report Jose, Hector, Phil, Roy, Steve, Germaine, Clint, Rick, Dave, Little Fred or Terry for not averting their eyes. (Oh crap, now you know I’m a brown-noser. But come on, you knew that didn’t you?)

This post is dedicated to Chuck’s grandfather, the ultimate ogler. He passed away on Monday. He will be missed.